This town has offered its men and women to the cause of the United States since before America was a nation.

And it is only right to remember those soldiers and sailors, said Suzette Wordell, principal of the Fort Barton Elementary School.

So, with her smartphone in hand and a weather chart on the phone's display, Wordell and her 230 pals set out to do that on Friday.

“We are doing our 13th annual Memorial Day Parade,” Wordell said. “We have many students with active military or veterans in their families.

“We want our students to understand that Memorial Day exists to honor those veterans, not just as a reason for cookouts or a day away from school.”

Fort Barton students honored that memory in style.

Teacher Maureen Carr and her second-graders gathered at the front of their classroom shortly after lunch, their tri-corner paper hats on their heads, as they practiced their song: “It’s a Grand Old Flag.”

“That song is a favorite of second-graders because they get to salute at the end,” Carr explained.

The parade formed just before 2 p.m. under threatening gray skies. The march stepped off at 2:08, led by the students from the fourth-grade classes taught by Amy Codega and Alane DelDeo.

“We can’t go fast,” explained Will Gerlach, a class member. He pointed to the pre-kindergarten students jumping in place right behind him.

“Unfortunately, we have to go at their pace,” he said.

The pre-K children were all holding onto a guide rope with red, white and blue bunting also attached. Each student carried a small American flag as teacher Hope Valloney and assistant Linda Ekstrom coaxed them into line.

“Eva, take the rope, my friend,” Ekstrom said. “Logan, you too, there you go.”

Then they marched, the fourth-graders taking baby steps, the pre-K children taking giant steps behind them as they proceeded down Lawton Avenue. They spilled down the hill, a lava flow of color as they headed to the Blue-Star Memorial next to Grinnell Beach.

Police Officers Sean Frodyma and Liam Black stopped traffic on Main Road for the few minutes it took the students to cross. Drivers got out of their stopped cars to watch the parade.

Students recited the Pledge of Allegiance, sang songs that included "Grand Old Flag" with its snappy salute, listened to highland bagpiper Bob Reid play "Amazing Grace," and then set a wreath beneath the statue of a World War I doughboy to honor the town’s service members.

Then the students marched back to the school, accompanied by the more than 200 adults who joined them for the memorial.

By then, Wordell had her smartphone stored in her pocket. The rain held off, and the gray sky showed patches of blue.